In the Summer of 2020, APAC, one of the UK’s largest home and garden suppliers, came to PDiC looking for us to design and construct a two tier mezzanine floor within their existing head office premises in order for the ground floor to be utilised as a bulk storage area complete with fork lift activities, the first floor for picking and the second floor to be a huge showroom.
Following initial surveys, we designed and constructed the mezzanine with the first floor set at 4 metres to satisfy the fork lift requirements and the second floor showroom at 7.3 metres to ensure noise was restricted.
Total floorspace of the project amounted to 40,000 sq ft of which 50% being allocated to the showroom, which is considered to be one the largest, if not the largest, showroom in the UK to display everything from homeware to floral arrangements.
One specific challenging requirement of APAC Managing Director, Roger Mackay, was the need for a statement staircase access to the showroom.
Our inspiration for this special request came from the classical staircases of yesteryear and in particular the ‘Grand Staircase’ of the famous RMS Titanic. Roger loved our design proposals and following many hours of design, meticulous detailing and hand fabrication a magnificent interpretation of a staircase fit for any stately home or grand ocean liner now proudly takes centre stage in APAC’s 120,000 sq ft distribution centre in rural Leicestershire.
